#bravo!

will’s more likely to post something if he’s feeling jealous (like his possessive joint reel after mack got back from milan, the way he’s more likely to bring up little private mentions of mack in interviews to assert his importance to mack while mack lies and says nothing if it has nothing to do with his and will’s hockey, the way he volunteered mack for the cupcake experience and made sure everyone knew they were texting and calling a lot and posted a tiktok on mack’s birthday to get attention because maybe mack has been playing too much with bedard to text him back or etc.) will needs that public claim way more than mack does, while mack just needs to be treated as the center of your universe in person for him to feel safe

in reference to this.

interesting! I totally get your point, and that's exactly why I wanted to see more opinions/perspectives on the matter cause I kept going in circles and complicating things when I thought about it 😭

you know, I put myself on a social media ban cause I only slept for two hours and my brain is sooo rambley when I'm like that (basically the chatty drunk friend) so I went to do """research""" for the aforementioned wip until my insomnia shows mercy on me and my guy...you're so right!!!

I think what complicated things for me is that I included past material as evidence since I was just frolicking and didn't really plan it per say (again, the wip is lighthearted and leans to crack lol, but I wanted to explore the realistic dynamic as well), and let some in-person/online moments overlap (like overlapping 'posted by him' and 'him generally being on camera' and letting in too many variables.)

like I had the initial thought of Not-Subtle-Mack cause of his time on Chicago Steel (and other moments but this is the basis: [my beloved pic here on the left, and this funny bratty moment] and the fact that there's much more candid material of him than will. but then yeah we can argue that: mack was a kid then - not in the nhl yet (yes there were eyes on him then too, but probably not on this level + the environment was lighter?) - a lot of that material was not filmed and posted by him.

then for will, first I was thinking: most of the content of him online pre-nhl was thought out and planned and not as spontaneous, or you know, just teenagers being goofy like some of mack's (dressed up dinners with his family - or this gem here.) like that, will seemed much more guarded and aware of his image to me, especially online, and would be more careful about catering it to his liking [insert all the stories about him being a control freak].

but then we can discredit that thought and say will had the stern hand of usntdp over him, and he seems a bit more open after, and support it using your take, which I'm liking more and more by the second lol, and bring in the fact that closer to their draft we see more, um, personal content from will that's posted by him like this one for example. and um, imma just leave this here too. also, we can bring back the control freak thing to actually support this: he might refuse to let others define his relationship with mack and feels the inexplicable need to control it; like in the air of "yes we are texting, make sure to jot that down, I have a lot of plans for us, WE ARE STARTING A BOOK CLUP ACTUALLY, anddddd we both finished the book!!!" control freak wants to control the narrative and wanting to cater their image to his liking. Nice! *

then the overlap. yup I did base a lot of non subtlety on the many mannnnyyyyyy possessive instances of mack on ice particularly (which yeah like you said, can be categorized as him being focused on will and not caring about external gazes, and it may include their baseball thing with the giants, their sewer and warmup traditions, etc.) or the 'posted by him/him on camera' overlap. like the moments on the pod, which we may attribute to the people around him which made him much more comfortable (similar to Steel?), and the moments where he does mention will unprompted in interviews or was poetics about him (again like you said, he seems to mostly stick to his hockey unlike will). like an air of * "I know you asked me about my achievement but how about we talk about smitty's? I can tell you how many times we played each other before the nhl since he already mentioned that we counted them over dinner, or I can talk about that amazing play of his, but no I'm not telling you what color hat he's wearing."

and lastly, for the gem that made me go "oh my god" in an astonished awe and break my self-imposed social media ban and get flashbacks of will's social media presence (the cupcakes and tiktoks you mentioned): this beauty lmao will.

The excellent Hillywood Show parodies of Good Omens (with a bit of Staged) and Doctor Who ...or a collection of Hilly Hindi being David Tennant

I think Madonna just did something the industry insists women her age cannot do. Nearing 70, forty years into her career, she released 'CONFESSIONS II' and debuted with sales over 100k and near universal critical acclaim, dancing through the whole rollout in fishnets, bright colors, and mini skirts. No, this isn't a Taylor Swift record, and it was never going to outsell Olivia Rodrigo's latest era or dominate the Billboard conversation the way a twentysomething pop girl's album does. I won't pretend otherwise. But that comparison was never the point. The point is that the number exists at all, attached to a woman who refused to disappear on schedule. Because the music industry runs on a quiet, brutal clock for women. "Be young, be marketable, be palatable," and the moment you age out of that window, "fade gracefully into legacy artist status." Greatest hits tours. Nostalgia slots. A guest verse here and there where you play the elder stateswoman and stay in your lane. Men get to age into gravitas. Women get aged out of relevance, often by their thirties, and somehow the culture still treats that as natural law rather than a bias wearing an industry standard as a costume.

'CONFESSIONS II' answers that clock directly. Madonna didn't reach for a stripped-down singer-songwriter reinvention to signal maturity, and she didn't soften the choreography or cover up. She stayed on the club floor making the same unapologetic dance music she has built entire eras around since the eighties, sounding like she's having the time of her life doing it. The refusal is the radical act here, more than any sales figure, if we're being honest. There was an easier rollout available to her. Play it safe, lean into legacy-act comfort, get praised for "aging gracefully" the way the industry likes its older women to age, quietly and out of the way, not bothering. She chose the opposite. "This is me, take it or leave it," and let the work answer for itself. Critics engaged with it seriously. People talked about it. None of that required a blockbuster number, because the goal here had nothing to do with competing against pop's current generation. Madonna was proving the door doesn't have to close. And that reaches past Madonna herself. Every woman being told, in ways loud or quiet, that her value comes with an expiration date now has something to point to. Following your gut instead of the calendar the industry hands you can still work, even decades in, even against every assumption stacked against you. I don't think the real weight of this lands right now. It lands later, when the industry has had time to catch up to what just happened. Somewhere down the line, women like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Christina Aguilera hit their forties and fifties and sixties still making the music they actually want to make, and the path Madonna is carving out right now is what lets them do it without the industry demanding they soften, retreat, or rebrand as "mature." She's showing that the accommodation can run the other direction: the industry bending to an artist's vision instead of an artist bending to fit an age bracket. That's the part I'd call genuinely revolutionary, maybe more than anything else in her catalog. Not a single rollout, but a shift in how the business ends up treating women once they're no longer twenty-two. One album debut won't dismantle years of ageism in music on its own. The bias is still real, still landing harder on women than men for the simple act of getting older in public, and one artist's success doesn't erase that. What it does is offer proof of concept: a woman near 70 doing exactly what she has always done, unfiltered, met with real acclaim and real attention instead of condescension. That's the part worth celebrating.

First, talking about Mizi's relationships to a few characters:

So at the beginning of the comic we see an interaction between Mizi and a male classmate talking, where her classmate admits to having feelings for Mizi and saying "males and females can't just be friends" because they will end up mating. When Mizi says that's gross, he slaps her and yells at her for "acting oblivious" and reveals to us that she has a bunch of other people circling around her, harboring crushes as well. He says it "must be nice", that it's easy when she has a pretty face, and calls her filthy and disgusting. Mizi apologizes but seems angry and says "what a shame". It is notable to say that this classmate holds a striking resemblance to Luka.

As a direct continuation, we see Sua and Mizi talking about the classmate. Apparently Sua had her suspicions about that classmate, while Mizi tries to vouch for him. Mizi says she's just happy to be with Sua and Sua expresses that she's "not sure [she] can say the same". Apparently Sua is feeling the tension of getting closer to debuting and has been depending on thoughts of Mizi to hold it together. The expression Mizi makes is half covered, but I'd say she looks somewhat upset or disappointed. Sua says that at least Mizi doesn't get dragged around like she does, and that it "must be nice". Immediately, Mizi slaps her, but there are tears in her eyes and she apologizes.

Later we get a scene between Mizi and Till where we find out that Mizi is aware Till's crush on her, and Till is aware that Mizi and Sua are in love. Mizi asks if it's hard not to like her and why does Till like her. When Till says "because you're pretty" she looks angry for a second before moving on and laughing.

Based on these interactions, I think we can say that Mizi was extremely aware of what other people thought of her. She knows that her male classmates are often attracted to her, and seems to deeply resent their romantic and sexual desires for her- specifically seeming upset that men find her "pretty". This could stem from her previous expression of disgust with male sexual advances, or perhaps she dislikes it because it's shallow.

I think it's easy to say that deep down, Mizi harboured some level of resentment towards Till for having a crush on her, specifically for her appearance and calling her "pretty" like a mirror to the classmate she was assaulted by. She likely acts oblivious because it's easier for her, and when she previously expressed her dislike for a male's advances, it ended with her getting hurt. This is an example of Mizi keeping up a good front to protect herself, keep that in mind. I think she does care about Till, but nonetheless, he's somewhat broken her trust by having feelings for her.

Another important character in this comic is Sua. Shockingly, we see Sua and Mizu have some sort of fight, the first we've ever seen. Sua seems to think that Mizi has an easy life because her guardian is sweet to her. I think this is a good mirror for the fandom, as many people seem to think Mizi is particularly fortunate for having Shine as an owner, while ignoring the fact that Mizi is still enslaved, like every other character. Though she loves Sua, she is angry that Sua thinks her life is easy.

In this comic, Sua and Till are representatives for each half of that specific classmate; the half that desires her physically (Till) and the half that desires her emotionally (Sua). Overall, I think most people have an idealized view of Mizi, seeing her as perfect and cheerful and "pure".

Here, I think it's important to compare MiziSua to the other canon ships in ALNST. HyunLuka and IvanTill are both "nastier" relationships, for lack of a better word. They're emotionally strained, and have some physical elements to them. IvanTill especially demonstrate physical desire with touching, kissing, licking and nuzzling; HyunLuka have less screentime to display this, but we still see Luka kiss Hyuna's poster and be very physical while mimicking romantic attraction in Round 5 and the finale. Both relationships are very complicated in their desire for each other.

MiziSua, in contrast, are shown as more "pure" with little physical contact beyond hugging and holding hands; their feelings are "uncomplicated" towards each other, only blind love and devotion. I think this is very intentionally done; perhaps part of the reason Mizi loves Sua is because there is no sexual/physical expectations put upon her, as with her other male classmates. I think part of the reason MiziSua comes off as so emotionally "pure" is that both parties are hiding darker parts of themselves and idolizing their partner. Mizi hides her resentment of Sua, and views her as "pure". Sua hides her self pity/loathing, and views Mizi as "pure" as well.

This can also explain why Mizi holds her friendship with Ivan so dearly, because he will never have romantic interest in her. She may also have sensed Ivan was also putting on a perfect and pure front to hide the dark parts of himself and felt a kinship. Though, based on Ivan's evaluation of Mizi, it's clear that he did not realize this of Mizi- following his habit of misjudging others.

I also want to talk about Round 5 again. I think it's no mistake that Mizi's male classmate from earlier resembled Luka. I think part of the reason Mizi retaliated against Luka so strongly was that he mirrored romantic/sexual advances towards her. We can see her flinching, her looks of disgust when Luka touches her or gets close to her. Maybe part of the reason she hated him mirroring Sua so much is that associating Sua with these advances she hates so much threatened to soil her memories of Sua; her final straw.

Now, onto Mizi's relationship with Alien Stage itself;

We open on the end of Weige, with Mizi knelt over Till. An apparition of Sua appears and mocks Mizi, asking if she "feels like a waste" and saying "how cunning you are". This line is repeated frequently, always in the light blue text used by "ghost Sua", keep this in mind. Then after her scene with Sua, again it says "how cunning you are" in light blue text. Again, we see her kneeling above Till with the light blue text saying "throwing me away wasn't enough... So you ditched all your other friends too." Towards the end, the light blue text says "you figured you'd use whatever you could, huh? Just so you could make it out alive on your own. What, am I wrong?" Now we see that the light blue text belongs to a vision of Mizi from Round 1. "Well, you did great, playing dumb so you could survive. I'm so proud of you." The vision of Mizi looks proud, then she looks cold, then turns and walks away.

Though very short, I think these scenes change everything about our perception of Mizi.

Obviously, these words are not coming from Sua's ghost or a past version of Mizi, they are coming from Mizi's conscience/guilt; so we can't take everything they say at face value, as they come from a skewed perspective, but they hold valuable information about Mizi's motives and thought process.

"How cunning you are" is extremely important in this comic. Mizi is not as naive as we thought. The various quotes above that Mizi knew full and well what would happen on Alien Stage, but pretended otherwise as a survival strategy.

I think that she knew that Sua would die in Round 1. I don't think she intentionally killed her, but I think she knew that one of them would die in the end, and that between the two of them, it would be Sua. She played along with their duet strategy, pretending to believe it would work, knowing that Sua would sacrifice herself for Mizi. She sees herself as having used Sua to survive, throwing her away to save her own life.

Not only that, but I think she would've done this for whomever she faced off against. I think part of her motive for remaining so well-liked amongst all her classmates, including Till, was so they would more easily give up during a round with her. If she was a friend to everyone, she would be an enemy to no one, aiding her survival and making her seem like less of a threat.

"How cunning you are" is right. She was cunning to make this plan, but she can't go through with it without guilt. Clearly it weighs on Mizi to have lost Sua, and even now that Till is gone, she seems to blame herself, despite having no hand in his death- because I think she knows that Till would've laid his life down for her too. Sure, she never asked for him to have feelings for her, but she would've used those feelings for survival nonetheless, and she can't shake that guilt. Potentially, she may know that Till could've escaped with Ivan, if not for his feelings for her. In Mizi's eyes, she had sealed Till's fate; first by being in the competition at all, and perhaps by showing up in the finale.

And she hates herself for it. Mizi is kind and loving, she loves her friends, even if she's jaded. She hates herself for not doing more to save them; for not giving herself up for Sua, for not saving Till, she stayed passive and let them die. That's why she ran out there in the first place, she couldn't stand by and watch another go without her trying to save them.

Then, in the end, the version of herself she hates the most- the Mizi from Round 1 -is there to tournament her. She's so proud of her for throwing away everyone she loved, just to keep going. Sitting high on her pile of bodies. But even that version of Mizi is still playing dumb, she can't be happy or proud. Smiling, then turning away in disgust.